What's Up With South Africa and Isle Of Man?

So…..I was thinking of trying to collect every standard circulation type first issued in my lifetime (I was born in 1960) and wanted to get a rough idea how big a project it would be (and how far along I already us).   So I ran the numbers listed  in the screenshot below.

But once I ran them I couldn't help noticing just how massively both South Africa and Isle of Man stand out as outlier issuers!   

Was just curious if someone who collects each of those issuers could comment.    Is this legit?   Or are there a bunch of, for example, Circulating Commems mislisted as Standard Circulation?

If it's legit, any idea what is driving the high numbers for each?

Thanks in advance for any comments!

Unrelated to my question, but thought some of you might e interested in the other graph I created.  No idea what's driving 1992.
Kind of surprised the first euro year isn't higher.
(This is from data exported at the beginning of March - probably more 2024's by now)

For South Africa, they rotate the language on their coins every year. This leads to a high number of new issues.

Interesting.    Is there a set rotation cycle?  How many languages?

I may have to just exclude South Africa from my collection basis  unless I can find assortments of circulated coins……way too expensive to ebay that many in small lots.   But maybe I could just go for same design/any language…..

chaboard

Unrelated to my question, but thought some of you might e interested in the other graph I created.  No idea what's driving 1992.
Kind of surprised the first euro year isn't higher.
(This is from data exported at the beginning of March - probably more 2024's by now)

I can't load your chart, but I suppose that the collapse of USSR caused many new coins  types from the 15 new countries in 1992

Ah…..that makes a lot of sense.

chaboard

  Is there a set rotation cycle?  How many languages?

Yes, there is on the the fourth series. 

I count ten languages. 

Fascinating - thank you!

IOM, so far as I am aware, is correct at 108.

There is a bit of a “mint bloat” in the 1997/98/99 dates. Most coins have three variants; the 1997 3rd portrait. Then 1998 moves to the fourth portrait but later in 1998/99 (depending on coin, I believe), the portrait text changes to include the triskelion.

So from the reverse, you get 3 coins that, often, look identical. But on the portrait side, they're all different. So with the 8 denominations in those 2-3 years, you end up with 24 listings.

Throughout the 70s to the early 2000s, they also changed the obverse every 3-4 years on average. That is unusually short for a standard circulation design, but is simply what they chose to do.

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Also, the UK number should probably be about 20 coins higher. The £1 coin changed every year from release in 1983 until a “typical” standard coin was released in 2008 which was then issued each year until 2015.

Until 2008, the £1 cycled through displaying each of the home nations individually, and then a full national one. E.g. 1983 is UK overall, 1984 was Scotland, 1985 was Wales, 1986 was Northern Ireland, 1987 was England, and 1988 was UK again.

After 2008 there was the “standard” design released every year & then commemorative home nation designs though they weren't released every year and some years had two home nation releases.

They're all listed in Numista as circulation commemorative (except the 2008 standard & the new standard issued after 2016), but they were all very widely available and were in everyday use. Exceptions for 1998 (UK) & 1999 (Scotland) which were not issued for circulation and so were collector proof sets only.

trying to collect every standard circulation type first issued in my lifetime

How to you define type? Are you doing it based on catalog reference codes or Numista pages? How do handle point types? For example, if there is a KM# 999.1 and KM# 999.2 would  you want to collect both?

Sometimes Numista puts the point types in one page, sometimes they get separate pages. Both KM and Numista try to be consistent, but in each case there are a large number of contributors and people with different points of view work on different areas. (Or were. I don't know how many people are assigning KM codes today.)

While the South Africa count is high (either by KM reference codes or Numista pages), I think if KM was consistent there would be more reference codes. For example, look at KM# 505. One KM code, but there are differences between the years. There are cases where smaller changes resulted in KM assigning .1 and .2.

In the end it needs to come down to what you want to collect. There is no right or wrong answer for what constitutes a complete collection for you.

The Isle of Man are legit.  Not only did they routinely change the circulation designs, but they also provided die letter varieties.  I am surprised that Poland, Thailand, and perhaps even Gibraltar did not register as outliers as well.

Russia also had huge quantities of circulation coin designs as well.

Isle of Man issued the new series of circulation coins every 4-5 years (except of 2004-16 long period):

1971 - 1975  
1976 - 1979
1980 - 1983
1984 - 1987
between 1988-1995 coins were changed inregularly, not full series at once so even more coins issued
1996 - 1999
2000 - 2003
2004 - 2016

2017 - 2022

2023 - 

Above refers to reverse change, in the meantime, there were obverse changes too with update of Queen effigy in 1985 and 1998 (other ones are together with reverse change at once) so we need to add full two series.

In addition, there were technical changes like smaller diameter (5p, 10p, 50p), metal change from non-magnetic bronze or CuNi to plated steel.

Almost always the reverse design refers to the IOM symbols, animals, plants or landmarks, so this is also kind of promotion of the Isle of Man.

Nearly every issue came with more than one set of die letters as well.